A minute later, Murjânah Khânum uttered a loud cry; the Mufti came forth sobbing, with head bowed; the black-cowled women scurried shrieking to the death-room, where they instantly began the dance of death. They leapt and pirouetted, waving arms above their heads, with frenzied cries. Barakah was gazing horror-stricken at the sight, when some one took her hand and whispered, “Come away!”
It was Murjânah.
“I cannot bear these customs,” she confessed. “The women of the country keep them in defiance of religion. It is useless to protest; one has to suffer. I am very tired, my dear; for I have not slept for many nights. Indeed, my weariness and grief are such that I can hardly look for rest save in the grave.”
Barakah took coffee in Murjânah’s room, and tried to comfort her. She too was sad. But her despair was turned to joy when that same day Muhammad rushed into her arms. He had been called by telegram. She held him back from her and gazed at him until he blushed and hung his head. The uniform, the high-crowned fez, the sword, the snowy gloves, embellished him. When she had gazed her fill, she made him tell her of the camp, his friends, his duties; and, started on that theme, he talked for hours.
“If only I could be transferred to the Canal!” he sighed. “That is the real centre of the war. The fighting where I am is empty show, and I am kept from taking part in it. Day after day, I have to teach recruits, dull fellâhîn, who know not right from left. Instruction seems to make them stupider. I beat and beat them, till my arm aches. By my sword and valour, I could often kill them! Think, O my mother!—El Islâm is menaced, armed infidels have set foot in our land, and these men, Muslims, will not learn their exercises!”
His mother laughed at his impetuosity. She told his grandfather’s last words to her, and how he feared the English would take hold of Egypt.
“There is no fear of that, in sh´Allah!” cried Muhammad. “Our faithful host will sweep them off like fleas. I wish I had been there to reassure the dear one. May Our Lord have mercy on him!”
The funeral of Muhammad Pasha Sâlih was among the greatest ever known, although the town was empty. The harassed population flocked to pay respect to one who had denounced Arâbi—a demonstration which could not be punished since sons of the dead man—nay, half his family—acclaimed the tyrant. In the front of the procession were led sheep and bullocks to be slaughtered at the tomb, their meat distributed among the needy in the name of the deceased. Then came hired chanters of the Corân, then half the male inhabitants of Cairo, walking, flanked by two thin lines of soldiers, then the male relations, then a choir of boys shrieking an ode in honour of the Prophet. Immediately behind these moved the lidless coffin, carried on men’s shoulders, with its coloured pall, and then the females of the family in shuttered carriages. A crowd of black-cowled women of the city, whose wailing sounded bird-like in the open air, brought up the rear.
The train, a mile long, wound out in the blinding sunlight over the sandhill to the city of the dead, from which at its approach the kites and crows went up, affrighted. There ensued a period of forced inaction, which to Barakah in the haramlik at the mausoleum seemed interminable. The ceaseless chanting in the tomb, the wailing of the crowd outside, attacked her nerves. Muhammad was to leave again that evening, and every minute she was parted from him seemed an hour. He was kept upon the men’s side of the tomb; nor would she see him till they reached the house again; she had first to drive home in the stuffy carriage with Na´imah and two of the late Pasha’s daughters. It was maddening.
In fact, she saw him only for a moment, ere he ran to catch his train. She wept a little at the disappointment, but his visit had relieved her of a weight of sorrow. She had only to dispatch a telegram and he would come again. Moreover, she was now quite certain he was not in danger.